JUNE. 147 



iiock. The very spirits of the churlish, the 

 hard and unkindly natures of the " sons of 

 Belial," gave way before the united influence 

 of the fair and plentiful time and of natural 

 religion, so far as to feast their servants. The 

 Bible, that treasury of the customs of the pri- 

 mitive nations, gives a most lively picture of 

 their practice in this particular. Nabal, " a 

 man in Maon, whose possessions were in Car- 

 mel, and who had three thousand sheep and 

 a thousand goats, was shearing his sheep in 

 Carmel," when David, knowing it to be a time 

 of abundance, sent some of his men out of 

 the wilderness to solicit provisions. The men, 

 when delivering their leader's message, used 

 it is an argument, " for we are come in a good 

 day." Some idea may also be formed of the 

 preparations on such occasions, from the sup- 

 ply of good things which Nabal's wife " made 

 haste" and gave to David. Two hundred 

 loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep, 

 ready dressed, and five measures of parched 

 corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two 

 hundred cakes of figs : and it is added, " Behold 

 Nabal held a feast in his house, like the feast of 

 a king." — Samuel ch. xxv. 



Such was the custom in this country in the 

 old-fashioned days. It was a time of merry- 

 making : the maidens, in their best attire, wait- 



